Secondments for Increasing the Employee Value - Essay Example

1. Executive Summary This report aims to highlight the issues associated with the implementation of a secondment programme in our organisation. It begins with an introductory part which underscores the advantages and disadvantages of such a programme both to the organisation and to the employees. The second part maps out the human resource management strategy that would be used to attract, select and place employees on this programme. It spells out the criteria for selection as well as the conditions of eligibility. This is followed by an identification of the internal problems that might result during the secondment programme, as well as the measures that can be taken to redress these setbacks. The paper is concluded with a review of making one of these secondment programmes abroad. 2. Introduction Secondments have repeatedly been used by managers as a strategic approach to diversify employee skills and performance. The repeated use of this approach to increase the employee value has been the result of the advantages that is had on both the employees and the organisations fostering such a programme. These advantages are two-pronged in the light of the benefits that go to the employer, the employee undergoing the secondment programme. For us, such a programme makes our organisation to have a human resource pool with diverse knowledge on all the functions and processes of the organisation. With employees having the traits of occupational and functional diversity, there is security system in place to shield the effects of eventualities like sudden resignation, retirement, dismissal, death, or incapacitation from accidents. Secondly, the secondment programme would allow us train our employees in-house while keeping them on the same payroll. This results to significant savings for the company. To our employees, the secondment programme would enhance both personal and career development, thereby giving them the opportunity for varied responsibilities. Apart from paying the employees salaries we would also incur extra costs to complete the secondment programme. Such costs would be related to buying new equipment for training. It could also lead to a decrease in operational performance as time meant for work would now be reduced to train other employees. 3. HR issues in relation to the secondment programme 3.1 To motivate our employees to apply for this programme, a number of incentives must be taken. This is an issue of in-house employee development programme and might come with characteristics of organisational change, the employees must be motivated to apply by making them know the importance of such a programme for their personal and career development as well as for the future of the company. The emphasis here should be placed on the idea that through the secondment programme, employees would be equipped with knowledge to make them handle more responsibilities and consequently get promotion within the organisation. To the extent possible, employees can be motivated to apply through a propaganda that makes them think of their next career path should they leave our organisation some day for one reason or the other. 3.2 Factors that would influence the selection of candidates who apply The most fundamental issue that would influence the selection of applicants would be the age of the applicant. This idea is rooted in the belief that an employee nearing retirement would likely contribute less to the company than a young employee who still has the natural possibility to work for many more years for us. Investing to train a younger employee therefore would be a long-term and profitable investment. Secondly, the sex of the employees would be taken into consideration. We should give preference to training a higher ratio of male employees to female employees because female employees would occasionally (naturally) leave the company a number of times for maternity leave. On the other hand, we would consider the academic background of the applicants. The rationale behind this is that it is difficult to attract, train and maintain high caliber graduates. So it would be of our advantage to give preference to multifunctional training for our employees with an advanced level of education. Therefore, I would like to specify the eligibility and selection criteria as follows: -Candidates must not be older than 35 years as of December 1st of the year of application and in possession of a valid driving licence. -Must be educated to degree level and have had no less than 5 years of full time work experience in the company. -Must be willing to relocate for training to any department that the management so wishes. As such there would be requirements for some travelling. - Must be proactive and have ability to work in a team, as well as the ability to communicate and negotiate. 3.3 The type of training and development programme I would recommend is job rotation, and cross-functional training. I would recommended this because job rotation allows team members to work efficiently in each other’s role, while cross-functional training gives employees the opportunity to work in different departments across the organisation. 3.4 The induction and socialisation issues that may arise in the first few days are those of conflicts of self-understanding, resistance to change, and the lack of quick adaptation for the new employees who could leave their departments for training with another employee with whom they have never worked before. Another issue that might crop up is an issue of work or national culture. Even though these departments are in the same company, each department may have its work culture different from another department’s. Should such issues arise then the employees might be helped by setting up a monitoring team that addresses any issues between the host departments and the employee to be trained. Apart from this, the employees can be helped by making them understand that the process of organisational restructuring and change would always meet with resistance such that they must see the results of conflicts and incompatibility as a temporal experience. 4 Secondments Abroad When an employee works abroad on a secondment programme, the business indirectly makes a long-term investment in its human resource pool to know more about the business culture of the country in which it has a branch office. Knowledge of this business culture can go a long way to make the company understand the rationale behind strategic moves made by competitors. As for the employee, the programme gives additional experience and improves his/her competence in the new domain of competence called cultural intelligence. Reference Berridge, J. (1992) Human Resource Management in Britain. Employee Relations, Vol.14 (5) Preston, D. An Introduction Human Resource Management in Business Quillien, J. and Olila, J (1992) Redefining Human Resource Management. Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol.24 (2) Read More